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penguin

Apologies for so much silence lately but I have been traveling quite a bit these past few months. Regardless, I knew something had to be included about the recent merger between Penguin and Random House (in my mind, this new GMO-house is referred to as Pengdom). Hmmm.

Two of the biggies are joining forces and monies to form one über-giant. They claim that now they will have more possibilities, both financial and otherwise, to spruce things up in the publishing world. I am skeptical of this consolidation.

The tie-up between Penguin and Random House marks the first deal between the world’s big six publishers. The others are Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. It would bring together the publishers of the Fifty Shades series and Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks.

Some literary agents, however, were unimpressed by the prospect of a combined Random House and Penguin, responding to reports of a possible deal last week by saying it could reduce the number of outlets for authors.

Penguin and Random House are both very different beasts; like the literary agents, I am a bit dismayed at future prospects. Besides outlets for authors, possibilities could include too much standardization of books and other publishing projects with not enough differentiation. Any thoughts??